Software Lead: Firmware & Robotics

FLX Solutions, Inc.; Bethlehem (Northampton County); Hybrid; USD 100,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity in early-stage company

Performance-based salary increases

Flexibility in role and package

Job summary

FLX Solutions, Inc. is seeking a Software Lead to oversee the embedded firmware for the FLX BOT platform. You will own the firmware stack, mentor a small embedded team, and define the product roadmap while collaborating closely with other engineering disciplines.

This role requires a senior embedded engineer with extensive experience in C/C++ and a proven track record of shipping embedded code. Strong communication skills and leadership abilities are essential for this position in Bethlehem, PA.

Qualifications

• 8+ years developing embedded firmware for production systems in C/C++.
• Leadership experience in a scaling early stage company.
• Experience converting business and product goals into a software roadmap.

Responsibilities

• Take ownership of FLX’s embedded firmware across the FLX BOT platform.
• Partner with senior roboticist for product-side embedded work.
• Define testing procedures and design test hardware.

Skills

C++ coding

Embedded firmware development

ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers

Communication protocols (SPI, I2C, UART, USB)

Troubleshooting and optimization

Education

B.S. or higher in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or Software Engineering

Tools

PlatformIO

Git

Job description

FLX Solutions, Inc. builds robotic systems that make inspection and maintenance faster, safer, and more repeatable, especially in tight, hard-to-reach spaces.

Our flagship platform, the FLX BOT, is a modular, handheld, snake-like articulating robotic system designed to solve one of the toughest challenges in maintenance: reaching the "last meter" in complex environments. It is already in use with the U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, a major DoD prime, and shipbuilders, with expanding applications across industrial, transit, and construction sectors.

The Opportunity:

FLX Solutions is at a key inflection point: the FLX BOT technology is already proven, the market is responding, and we have a high-confidence pipeline of over $18M including an upcoming large pilot order from the Navy. This is just the beginning.

As we scale from pilots to commercial launch and full-scale production, we need a Software Lead who can take ownership of the embedded firmware stack, free up robotics research to focus on controls and autonomy, and turn our product roadmap into software milestones that actually ship.

This is a player-coach position with a strong bias toward doing on day one. You will personally write C++ code to get short term priorities up and running immediately, while laying the foundation for how embedded software gets built at FLX. In parallel, you will define the roadmap and begin building a small embedded team over time, shifting from primarily hands-on execution to more leadership as the company scales. You will direct embedded development, act as the software owner in hardware-heavy discussions, and be accountable for turning research into working product on real hardware. This is the role that answers "does this actually work?" and turns "we should be able to do x" into a working demo.

If you like architecture diagrams but hate it when they never touch silicon, this is your role. If you have shipped embedded code that runs in the field and have the scars to prove it, keep reading.

What you’ll Do:

Own and Ship the Firmware Stack:

• Take ownership of FLX’s embedded firmware across the FLX BOT platform.
• Design and develop robust, testable C/C++ firmware on ARM Cortex-M targets (STM32 and Teensy 3.2/4.0), drivers, communication stacks, control logic, and hardware abstraction layers.
• Take embedded software from early prototypes into production-grade systems, with an eye on reliability, maintainability, and long-term extensibility.
• Build and maintain bootloaders, OTA and in-field update systems, and flashing workflows that non-firmware engineers can run confidently during pilots and demos.
• Write and maintain APIs used by internal teams, customers, and partners.

Bridge Research and Product:

• Partner with our senior roboticist and take ownership of the product-side embedded work so robotics research stays focused on controls, kinematics, and autonomy.
• Absorb existing tribal knowledge quickly and turn it into a system the broader team can operate, so firmware is never a single point of failure.
• Be the point person for bringing new FLX BOT hardware iterations online; flashing, commissioning, and validating each build.

Sensor Bring-Up and Rapid Prototyping:

• Own peripheral integrations end-to-end; actuators, motor controllers, RGBD cameras, IMUs, and time-of-flight sensors; from concept through prototype to production.
• Stand up vendor demo kits, wire in dev boards, get point clouds, images, and IMU data flowing, and run off-the-shelf examples so the team can iterate quickly.
• Rapidly prototype embedded experiments: make sensors talk, capture data, and prove out concepts that can later be productized.
• Debug and validate embedded systems using signal analyzers, oscilloscopes, and real hardware in real environments.

Define the Firmware Strategy:

• Meet with management and customer-facing teams to understand user needs, current and pending programs, and deadlines for product releases and functionality.
• Architect FLX’s go-to-market firmware strategy, software architecture patterns, module boundaries, and scalable development workflows.
• Work with the hardware team to define testing procedures and design test hardware. Help create the physical systems your team needs to write and ship reliable code.
• Define what "good" looks like: test strategy, code review standards, Git and CI practices, documentation, and release processes.
• Build systems that let us ship fast prototypes and urgent patches without accumulating unpayable technical debt.

Lead People, Program, and Execution:

• Manage and mentor a small embedded team, including hiring and developing junior engineers.
• Translate the FLX product roadmap and customer contracts into software milestones with demonstrable wins on a regular cadence; wins that are visible to engineers and non-engineers alike.
• Balance rapid wins with meaningful long-term progress. Software at FLX should never be a year of silence before a single big deliverable.
• Be the software voice in hardware-heavy meetings and translate customer and mission goals into firmware priorities.
• Drive project execution: keep work structured, unblock engineers, and make sure firmware deliverables ship on time.

You Are:

• A senior embedded and firmware engineer who writes modern C++ and builds systems meant to last.
• A calm, capable technical leader who can guide a growing team, collaborate across disciplines and with external partners, and can balance tradeoffs between production speed and code quality.
• Someone who has shipped embedded code on real, customer-facing products, not just research prototypes or academic projects, and has the battle scars to show it.
• A T-shaped engineer: deep in firmware, and comfortable enough with sensors, electronics bring-up, and robotics frameworks to be useful across a mechatronics team.
• Someone who thinks in architecture and roadmaps as easily as tickets and patches.
• Fluent with modern AI coding tools, and you have the technical depth to write the code yourself when it counts. You know how to prototype fast with AI, then do the real engineering work to harden it into scalable, maintainable systems.
• Excited about robotics, real hardware, and shipping systems that work outside the lab, including in demanding DoD and industrial environments.

Qualifications:

Required:

• 8+ years of professional experience developing embedded firmware for production systems in C/C++.
• Leadership experience as a team lead in a scaling early stage company.
• Experience converting business and product goals into a software product roadmap and executing it.
• A track record of shipping embedded software on real, customer-facing products balancing production discipline with rapid betas and prototyping.
• Prior experience in startup/early stage hardware/mechatronics product companies.
• 3+ years of recent, hands-on experience with ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers (STM32 and Teensy highly preferred). Experience with PlatformIO for cross-platform development across microcontrollers.
• Strong knowledge of communication protocols (SPI, I2C, UART, USB) and low-level driver development.
• Experience with bare-metal programming and resource-constrained optimization.
• Proven ability to troubleshoot, profile, and optimize for performance, memory, and timing on real-time systems.
• End-to-end sensor integration experience covering hardware, drivers, and the data pipeline.
• Strong Git and modern development workflow practices.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, able to explain progress to engineers, customers, and investors alike.
• Demonstrated ability to lead engineering execution in ambiguous, fast-moving environments.
• U.S. Citizenship (due to DoD requirements).

Preferred:

• 3+ years developing on Linux, including toolchains, scripting, and build systems, especially optimizing boot times.
• Comfort reading data sheets, electrical schematics, and working hand-in-hand with hardware and electrical engineers.
• Motor control experience with stepper or BLDC systems.
• Experience building bootloaders or OTA and in-field update systems.
• Python or another object-oriented language for build, test, and tooling automation.
• ROS or ROS2 literacy, enough to run vendor demos, wire a sensor into a node, and integrate with a robotics researcher who owns the deeper stack.
• Familiarity with basic perception and sensor-fusion concepts such as Kalman filtering and time synchronization across sensor streams.
• B.S. or higher in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or Software Engineering, and/or equivalent experience.

Compensation and Location:

• Salary: Competitive for an early-stage company, with performance-based increases tied to company milestones and your expanding responsibilities.
• Equity: A meaningful, early-stage equity grant. You will be a critical part of our success, and your compensation will reflect that.
• Location: Bethlehem, PA area strongly preferred so you can lead on the ground alongside the CEO and engineering team. Remote or hybrid considered for exceptional candidates.
• Travel: Occasional travel to customer sites, pilots, and partner offices.
• Flexibility: Willing to adapt role and package for the right candidate.